


l’appel du vide

by Nighttyger



Category: Tantei Gakuen Q | Detective Academy Q
Genre: Mentioned Suicidal Ideation, Post-Canon, canon-typical but brief discussions of death, gen? romance? you decide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:29:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27749794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nighttyger/pseuds/Nighttyger
Summary: Ryu and Kyu take a walk and find themselves face-to-face with a bad memory.
Relationships: Amakusa Ryuu & Renjou Kyuu
Comments: 9
Kudos: 6





	l’appel du vide

**Author's Note:**

> me, looking at TGQ: this is a dead fandom.  
> me: could be a hyperfixation.
> 
> Edit: this is apparently not a dead fandom. full confession I wrote this like over a year ago when it very much was jsdjhf

Ryu likes to take walks all around town. He always says he doesn’t have any particular reason, that he just likes getting some fresh air, but Kyu suspects it’s one of the many small ways Ryu relishes his freedom from Pluto. No walk was ever the same, it felt like; Ryu never takes the same path twice in a row, and even on familiar streets, there’s always something new along the way.

That said, Kyu can’t remember them having ever passed over this bridge on one of their walks before. Maybe that shouldn’t be too surprising - it is a little out of their usual stomping grounds. He supposes Ryu was feeling adventurous today.

...That doesn’t seem right, though. An adventurous Ryu was happy, excited about every new thing they saw, and surprisingly chatty. This Ryu only barely acknowledged Kyu’s ramblings about the newest detective novel he’d read, didn’t bother to try to puzzle the pieces together from his words. He stared at the ground, his face schooled into something approaching neutral but not quite achieving it, the slight narrow of his eyes betraying him. And when Ryu acted like this... 

Something was bothering him. Something deep in him.

Every time Kyu saw Ryu like this, he hoped he’d never see it again. It brought back memories of Ryu before he’d freed himself from Pluto’s grasp. Cornered expressions, steely eyes, and bloody clothes. Trapped in a cage that Kyu couldn’t see.

He’s so absorbed in his thoughts that he walks straight into Ryu, who had stopped to gaze out over the trains running beneath them, one hand on the railing. Ryu barely even looks startled at the impact; he simply looks over at Kyu and murmurs his name in that quiet way he always does.

“Ah, sorry, Ryu...” Kyu scratches at the back of his head and gives Ryu a sheepish grin. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I wasn’t either. So it’s alright.” Ryu turns to look back out over the rails as another train passes beneath them. His eyes follow the motion, linger downward a moment after it’s gone before he closes his eyes and turns his head away.

“...Ryu?” He hums in acknowledgement. “What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer, but Kyu lets him be. Ryu is the kind of person to carefully collect his thoughts before speaking, to say only the exact words he wanted to. And Kyu’s trying to put the puzzle pieces together himself, anyway.

“...Do you remember this place?” is the question Ryu finally asks. Kyu frowns and looks out over the edge. Now that Ryu mentions it, the view seems vaguely familiar, like a hazy sense of déjà vu. But he can’t place it.

“I feel like I’ve been here before, but I can’t actually remember why or when...”

“It was after the case at Fantasia Hall.”

Ah. That rings a bell. Rings many bells Kyu would rather not have rung, in fact. 

Cornered expressions. Steely eyes. Bloody clothes. He reaches out a hand and brushes his fingertips along Ryu’s arm, just enough to remind himself that he’s there. That he’s not teetering on a knife’s edge.

Ryu glances over at him. “Sorry,” he says.

“It’s alright. I remember now. You ran from the hospital.” Kyu is not the type of person to panic, but the white-hot bolt he felt in his chest when he heard that Ryu had disappeared was surely that.

Ryu nods. Kyu feels it more than sees it.

“You found me.”

He did, and Kyu is grateful for it. What would he do without Ryu by his side?

They stand there in silence for a long time, Kyu’s hand coming to rest on Ryu’s arm. He remembers running, his lungs burning, his knees hurting from the shock of the pavement below his feet. He didn’t know where to go, where to look, so he just ran, and as if by some miracle, he found him, staring out over the tracks much like he was now, leaning so heavily on the rail that Kyu thought he might fall.

“Kyu.” Ryu’s hand comes up to cover his, and he realizes that his fingers are digging into Ryu’s arm.

“Sorry.” But Ryu doesn’t take his hand back, so neither does Kyu. Ryu has always run a bit cooler than Kyu, but his hand is warm on his all the same, and it grounds him a bit as he leans on the railing, looks down.

If he fell, he starts to think, and then stops. He doesn’t need to imagine what it would look like. He’s seen it. Searched the body. Solved the case. ...Well, Ryu searched the body. But even his face was strained.

He was too relieved to really put thought to it at the time, but staring down at the tracks like this, he wonders what Ryu was thinking, then. Why he came here. Did he wonder what would happen, too? He’s pretty sure there’s a term for it, the wondering, but it’s something foreign. He’s sure Ryu would tell him, if he wanted to ask.

“Ryu, were you-“

“I’m glad you found me.” 

They speak simultaneously, in that way they often do. Ryu’s fingers are the ones digging into Kyu this time. Kyu stares at Ryu, and Ryu stares back. He leans towards him by an imperceptible degree, and Kyu understands it as well as if he’d spoken. He frees his hand, murmuring his reassurance to Ryu’s whispered apology, and instead wraps his arm around Ryu’s back, gently pushing them both away from the railing. They shouldn’t stay here. Kyu still doesn’t know why they were here in the first place. He feels a little like he did running that day.

“Do you-“ he starts as they reach the end of the bridge, but he quickly stops himself, worrying at his lip. Do you want to go home, he’d been about to say, but Ryu didn’t live with them anymore.

“Please,” Ryu answers nonetheless. “Do you think your mother would mind, if-“

“No, she won’t mind at all.” Kyu finds a laugh in him, somewhere. “She’s been asking me when you’re coming over again.”

Ryu smiles. He can feel it in the way his shoulders loosen.

“I have been wanting natto recently.” Ryu sighs. “I try making it, but it never comes out right.”

“But it’s natto! Do you even make natto? I don’t think you do...”

Ryu makes a half-hearted attempt to elbow him.

“You don’t need to make fun of me! Besides, you don’t get to say anything about cooking!” Kyu pouts, and a soft laugh bubbles up from Ryu.

He is so, so glad he found him.


End file.
